So, I'll be honest. I was totally not paying attention to motherboards, especially ASRock given they're a subsidiary of ASUS and typically make the more affordable motherboards. Then I randomly stumble onto this... beast of a motherboard. It is literally so packed with features that the PCB is almost hidden.
I'll start with the most notable / important features to me. The board features 14 SATA 3 ports, which is insane given other boards barely have any. But what makes these special is that 8 of them are actually SAS ports controlled by an LSI SAS2308 controller.
Top quality controller from a well-respected enterprise-RAID company.
Next, the board uses two EPS12v connectors for the CPU. Yes, two! Given I've seen these things melt down during overclocking runs, I'm amazed more OC-targeted boards don't do this. It even has a molex plug for extra PCIe power, again almost no boards use them anymore and rely purely on the 24pin ATX plug.
It features a 24-phase VRM, with 24 chokes, and 24 DrMOS chips for a full-blown, no-holds-barred VRM arrangement. ("A DrMOS combines up/down FETs and driver IC into a single, space-efficient package", from what I've read) Most other boards may have 24 chokes or phases, but cut down on the rest. Combine with with dual EPS12V connectors, and this board has some serious potential to meltdown CPUs, or do some liquid helium overclocking.
Next up, it has two PCI Express 3.0 PLX bridges... which actually makes this the first motherboard to support four-way PCIe 3.0 slot use electrically. Kinda silly from a gaming standpoint, but it would be useful for workstation use or as an HPC platform with cards chewing through loads in all four slots.
It also features Creative's new Sound Core3D processor... not familiar at all with it, but supposedly good and better than the X-fi processor? As for other features, I spot four USB 3.0 ports on the back + 8 USB 2.0 ports, some external SATA ports, and dual Gbit LANs that I assume at least one is from Intel. And it retains all eight RAM slots, always a big plus.
No launch date or price has been set yet. Probably going to be uber expensive, although not as expensive as the ASRock Fatal1ty Champion perhaps...
Source
I'll start with the most notable / important features to me. The board features 14 SATA 3 ports, which is insane given other boards barely have any. But what makes these special is that 8 of them are actually SAS ports controlled by an LSI SAS2308 controller.
Top quality controller from a well-respected enterprise-RAID company.Next, the board uses two EPS12v connectors for the CPU. Yes, two! Given I've seen these things melt down during overclocking runs, I'm amazed more OC-targeted boards don't do this. It even has a molex plug for extra PCIe power, again almost no boards use them anymore and rely purely on the 24pin ATX plug.
It features a 24-phase VRM, with 24 chokes, and 24 DrMOS chips for a full-blown, no-holds-barred VRM arrangement. ("A DrMOS combines up/down FETs and driver IC into a single, space-efficient package", from what I've read) Most other boards may have 24 chokes or phases, but cut down on the rest. Combine with with dual EPS12V connectors, and this board has some serious potential to meltdown CPUs, or do some liquid helium overclocking.
Next up, it has two PCI Express 3.0 PLX bridges... which actually makes this the first motherboard to support four-way PCIe 3.0 slot use electrically. Kinda silly from a gaming standpoint, but it would be useful for workstation use or as an HPC platform with cards chewing through loads in all four slots.
It also features Creative's new Sound Core3D processor... not familiar at all with it, but supposedly good and better than the X-fi processor? As for other features, I spot four USB 3.0 ports on the back + 8 USB 2.0 ports, some external SATA ports, and dual Gbit LANs that I assume at least one is from Intel. And it retains all eight RAM slots, always a big plus.
No launch date or price has been set yet. Probably going to be uber expensive, although not as expensive as the ASRock Fatal1ty Champion perhaps...
Source
